Wine of Bliss
by imprimatur13
Summary: Instead of demurring Gil's offer to share a drink with him in Fate/Zero episode 6, Kirei is tempted to join. Reflection ensues.


"Kirei, you should learn what pleasure really is," the gilded Servant - though the term "Servant" was far too inaccurate to describe his self-image - said, as he placed the wineglass full of Kirei's best wine before him. The red liquid sloshed as he set it down, as if it itself were petitioning Kirei to imbibe it. It moved in waves, determined though they were by strict laws of physics and mathematics, that were decidedly chaotic. A controlled chaos emanated from the wineglass, or so it seemed. Kirei was transfixed, not so much by the words of the gold-haired demigod, as by his curiosity in the patterns that seemed to simultaneously emerge and disappear every instant in the sea of blood in the goblet. Could they be quantified? Should they be quantified? How could he know? If he were to study any individual pattern, it would fade from view immediately. What must be done to preserve them forever, in eternal flux?

Kirei's mind brought him back to the present. All he should be focused on right now is dealing with Gilgamesh, and figuring out how to use his newly gained information on Emiya Kiritsugu - whose motivations remained an enigma - to engineer his downfall. So that's what he decided to do.

"I shall not have a mere Servant lecture me on matters of this world," Kirei said. "You have been resurrected for a singular purpose, and even now your corporeal form is most insubstantial, requiring a constant feeding of mana from Tohsaka Tokiomi to keep you present."

"Ah ah ah!" Gilgamesh tutted. "It is a mark of your surprisingly poor schooling, Kirei, that you do not know more of my past. For I was born to this earth when humans were still young and somewhat interesting, and I ruled it with an iron pole. It bent to my firm will, and yielded all manner of pleasures to delight my soul. Do you not think I have the benefit of experience, that I may guide you on a path to levels of bliss heretofore unknown to any member of this race of abject mongrels? To be sure, it's not as if you deserve it any more than they do, the worthless lot of them. You too, are worthless, dear Kirei," Gilgamesh leaned forward, putting his face against Kirei's. "But... you interest me, somehow. I think I shall do you the absolute honor of showing you what true joy is." He gestured towards the wineglass in front of Kirei, next to his own, already half-drunk. "Come, join your King in a moment of my excessive magnanimity."

XXX

Kirei remained externally composed, despite his inner... revulsion? Well, yes, certainly that, but... there was more to it, somehow. Or so he felt. He couldn't quite be sure, but who could? The hearts of men are swirling pools of hatred, envy, lust, and greed. And perhaps there was a small Divine spark of goodness - his mind turned to the cross hanging from his neck - but if it could be found in that maelstrom of evil, he certainly would not be the one to do it. That was a job for the philosophers, the theologians, perhaps even the Mages who searched for the swirling Root that so reminded him of his own heart. As it stood he was glad he was able to put himself in the service of his master and his Church, fulfilling the Word of God. Let these Mages and Servants do as they will in this war; he would of course perform his own role, but its outcome bore no relevance to him. If he won, if he lost, it was all the same. Clearly, the Grail, as a man-made perversion of the Goblet drunk from by the Son of God, was as prone to error as any other broken vessel in this wretched world, wrought by wretched hands, and it could mistake a person like him as ambitious for its power. Perhaps the blasphemous Servant was right after all; perhaps they were all mongrels. Just weak-willed worms pushing through their coprocephalic lives with no real accomplishments greater than simple perpetuation of their miserable species, blinded by the dazzling lights of their fantasies of power, murder, and debauchery. Not that Gilgamesh himself was excepted from this collective; in fact, more than anyone else, one might say he had dedicated himself to these selfsame meaningless vanities in life, and it was clear he was unchanged by the experience of death and rebirth. The greatest mongrel of them all, the King of Mongrels!

Kirei chuckled inwardly at the irony. In fact, it was almost pitiful how the erstwhile King of Babylon looked down on him. Fine. He could humor him a bit. Where was the harm?

XXX

"Certainly, King," Kirei said. He lifted the goblet to his lips, swiveling his wrist as he did to get a quick glimpse at the ripples and waves within the boundaries of glass; the boundaries of emptiness that enclosed something not just empty, but infinite in its variations. How amazing, he thought, as he tipped it into his mouth.

The liquid flowed past his teeth, coating them in a crimson hue. It passed over his tongue, exciting the taste buds on it with the variously sweet and acidic notes that combined to produce the particular flavor he desired of the wines in his collection. It flowed down his throat, a comfortable warming sensation, and finally settled in the great maw of his stomach, where it would be incorporated into him, and become his body and his blood. Of course, a certain component of it would also become part of his mind. The alcohol generally didn't affect him much, but even so, a slight intoxication was inevitable. Not enough to impair his better judgment, but perhaps there was no real harm in a slight "buzz".

"Excellent, Kirei," Gilgamesh said. "Perhaps now we can talk, as your soul has been elevated by virtue of the substance formerly known as the drink of the gods, which in this pathetic era has been reduced below other beverages to an extent that is beyond shameful. Wine gladdens not only the heart, but the soul, and all generative processes thereof, as well as those of the corporeal manifestation. Put simply," Gilgamesh here took a sip of his own wine, "by drinking this, I have deigned to lower my exalted presence somewhat, to the extent as it is possible, to somewhere not astronomically distant from your own place. And so too, have you been raised to see, not a glimpse, but the reflection of a glimpse of my own Divinity.

"So, let us talk."

Kirei put down his glass. "Very well. What would you like to talk about, Gilgamesh?"

"There is only ever one thing to talk about, dear Kirei," Gilgamesh said. "Let us talk about that which binds the lowliest mongrel, and the highest King. Namely, let us speak of joy. What do you enjoy, Kirei?"

What a ridiculous question. Kirei expected more of the King of Heroes, First of all Servants. While he may have frittered his own life away, and continued to do so, did he really bear no higher sentiment? Was he truly, from beginning to end, alpha to omega, nothing more than a base hedonist? He said as much to Gilgamesh.

"Ah, but Kirei! What else truly matters in this world? I built the first Kingdom on this soil, and it faded. Not my own Kingship, you understand, but the physical manifestation thereof disappeared, as evidently this world was not worthy of it. I employed thousands of slaves, and what material remains are there of Babylon? Naught but some buildings. Ruins. Husks of their former glory, of which they have been divested in my absence. When you die, Kirei, everything you built disappears. Working towards ideals is all very well and good, if your aim is never to ascend even a whit from the mud in which you crawl. Ideals are exactly that, you see: ideal. Not real. Not achievable. Nothing more than a maze in which you scurry towards a nonexistent goal, as your life is slowly drained, and before you know it you've spent your entire life on absolutely nothing. And the worst part is, all this time, you have deluded yourself into believing you've been working towards a greater good. I ask you, Kirei," Gilgamesh raised his voice, "What is higher, more uplifting, more spiritual, than your own pleasure? As King, I am above all you mongrels, reposing in perfect splendor as a model of what one should be. If you cannot see this, and aspire to it, you are not worthy to look upon my countenance."

Kirei cleared his throat. "Gilgamesh, while it may be so that you are unable to look beyond yourself, we men are capable of aspiring to higher ideals than our own rotting corpses. We all, even you it so happened, die eventually. And for those of us who do not lower ourselves to be mere tools as Servants - the very name illustrates perfectly what you all are, and in fact is somewhat overly complimentary, for you are more "Slaves" to the wills of your Masters - we aim for immortality in our own ways. Some by service to the Eternal, in whose bosom we may be incorporated and share in His Divine bliss for all eternity, and some in other ways; perpetuating their genetic legacy through children, subsuming themselves to a community or ideology, etc. I assure you, King of, as you call us, Mongrels, that my own immortality shall be of a qualitatively different kind as compared to your own. For I shall become one with the One at the Root of all, forever basking in eternal bliss."

"Kirei, Kirei, Kirei... Why wait? Why not achieve this eternal bliss of yours right now? After all, do you not concede that Man was made "in the Image of God"? If so, it logically follows that your destiny is to rule in this world as He does on high. You need not die to become one with the divine, you already are divine. Be true to your divine nature, and partake of the bounty of this world that is but a treasure chest, the golden apples within waiting to be unlocked and tasted. Is it not the greatest irony to work yourself to the bone, sacrificing everything you have and are, for the sake of an external divinity, as you throw away your own? Is that not a disgrace to Him who formed you, who breathed into you life that you may live it? What sort of idiotic deity would do something like that, I wonder. Certainly none I'd worship."

Kirei had, of course, been exposed to such philosophical arguments in the past. As a member of the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament, he had studied all the major works of Western philosophy and theology, and he could not deny that the idea had a certain appeal. After all, Gilgamesh only spoke according to a simplistic understanding of divinity, and the simplistic always lures the intelligent mind far more strongly than does the complex. It is the nature of intelligence that it seeks order in the midst of chaos, and order is so much easier to manage when it is simple, for as it grows in an interlocking web of axioms and postulates, it becomes increasingly susceptible to the vicissitudes of doubt. This doubt creeps in, and ties up the beautiful threads of faith with ugly Gordian knots that can only be resolved by cutting their constituent fibers. Sometimes Kirei wished his own faith were so simple, and yet... and yet, how could it be? He took pride in devoting himself to something greater than himself. If he were left alone, only to strive for his own gain, where would that leave him? He would be nothing more than himself, and that was something he could never abide.

"Quiet, Servant," Kirei set his glass down on the table, as the liquid inside it continued to swirl. "I've no wish to sully my soul any further with this nonsense. I thought I might gain some forgotten, ancient wisdom by listening to the Original Hero, but it seems you have nothing to offer me that I have not encountered time and again, recycled in the minds of deluded men and women throughout the ages. You waste my time."

Kirei stood up to leave. He walked out the door, leaving the blond Servant at the table with head cocked with a curious look.

"It seems this one will be more entertaining than I expected," Gilgamesh said as he dematerialized, still reclining.

XXX

Kirei walked the courtyard of the church, as he thought about what the arrogant Servant had said. The more he thought about it, the more tempting it became. After walking for several hours, the temptation to empirically test Gilgamesh's proposition grew almost to the breaking point. The strain on his psyche was immeasurable, and he could barely think of anything else. After all, everything he knew in theory was well and good, but theoretical knowledge was just that - abstract, not quite real. That was all he had ever had in his life. Theoretical, imaginary approximations of real happiness. He had seen people smile. He didn't know what that was like. He wanted to know. He wanted to find out for himself, go out on his own, and find out what that was like. Of course, he would probably end up rejecting it as folly and emptiness, but he certainly couldn't properly argue the merits of hedonism with Gilgamesh until he had some sort of taste of it for himself, so that they could have some common ground in which to come to a mutual understanding, if at all possible.

He decided that there was no way he could ever sleep like this, and if he couldn't sleep, he would be unable to fulfill his sacred duties. So before the day was out, he had to go see Gilgamesh again. Just to put his mind at ease. With an ingathering of breath meant to effect a similar ingathering of inner strength and resistance, he opened the door to the room where his interlocutor awaited.

XXX

"Ah, Kirei!" Gilgamesh said, getting up from his lounging position on the couch, and walking to the door. "So nice to see you again, I wasn't expecting you back to-day." He leaned close, until Kirei could feel his warm breath against his ear. "Have you perhaps reconsidered my offer?"

"Remove yourself from me, Servant," Kirei said. He firmly pushed Gilgamesh away.

"Certainly, certainly, Kirei. Still, the very fact that you have returned shows a certain curiosity, no? Else, why would you come seek my radiance?" Gilgamesh reclined.

"You are not entirely mistaken. I have come to the realization that there is something... lacking, within me. An emptiness, a hole in my awareness. I must confront it, and peer into it, that I may know it, and thereby remove its power over me. So come, Servant. Let us drink together."

"Excellent," Gilgamesh said. "However," he added as Kirei began to move toward his wines in their cabinet, "I propose a slight modification to yesterday's plan." He lifted his hand into the air, and a ring of gold, the same color as his hair, appeared in midair. Out of it emerged, seemingly from nowhere, a large golden flagon. Gilgamesh set this down on the table, and with his other hand, summoned yet another ring from which he pulled a pair of golden goblets, ornately engraved with the forms of lions. With another flick of his wrist, the flagon raised itself and began pouring its contents, a thick, rich red wine, into the goblets. The flow was exquisite, the way the viscous liquid came from the large and moved, motivated by the natural pull of gravity which exerted itself on all things, pulling them down to the Earth from whence they came. The flow continued uninterrupted, for an agonizing length of time, during which Kirei could do nothing but stare at it. At the way a single central channel seemed to flow, with stability, as outer channels formed around that central one and melded with it, separated from it, in an endless orgy of creation, separation, and destruction by reincorporation. To think that this, while perhaps higher quality than his own wines, was no more than a simple liquid, filled him with awe. It inspired him, inspired him to reach higher levels of understanding of the infinite beauty in this world, that always seemed just out of reach; he could always see it, sense it, almost taste it, but every time he tried to grab hold of it, quantify it with his intellect, it evaded him. Maybe there was a simpler way to know it. Yes. There was indeed such a way.

XXX

Kirei waited until one of the cups was filled, and immediately reached out, took it, and drank it in a single motion, without spilling any of it. Amazing. As he now drank of it, he felt like it was a qualitatively different experience to the last time he drank wine in the presence of the King of Heroes. He felt like he had somehow crystallized the ineffable into a single experience. All those swirls and poolings and waves and crests and peaks and valleys, the infinite phenomena, each of which infinitely faceted, were now a part of him. They continued their Brownian motions in his stomach. And yet, it was all accomplished with a simple act, the most simple of all acts. An act that animals, nay, even plants performed all the time. All he did was absorb the liquid into himself, making it a part of him. Knowledge by incorporation. And it was also sensually simple, at least in comparison to what he would expect for an act of this supreme splendor. A taste, a slight soothing and moistening of the throat, and it was over. It was temporary, and it was base, and it was weak, and it was small - and yet, it was everything. That small quantity of wine contained everything: it was the reflection of the eternal oscillations of galactic waves of uncertainty encompassing the cosmos, and more. It was every single atom, every single quark in its simultaneous, paradoxical existences. And they were all it. Just as the wine reflected the galactic spiral, so did the galactic spiral, with all its constituent stars, which were as pinpricks in comparison, reflect the wine. For as the wine is to the spiral, so are its droplets to the stars, and as the swirl of the wine is to the inexorable rotation of the spiral, as each exhibits a certain apparent order when observed casually from a distance, but when examined closely, betrays an infinity of multidimensional, mutually exclusive instances of infinitely temporal instances of chaos that somehow all combine to form a coherent, perfect, infinite unity.

Kirei now felt that there was meaning. He now felt joy, in the world. He could feel the manifestation of the Divine in everything. He could feel it in the wine, he could feel it in the chair in which he sat, he could feel it in the golden cup still in his hand, he could feel it in the night sky he had often stared at as a boy, he could feel it in the lash of the whip he had often hated as a boy, and he could feel it-

he could feel it in the serpentine, red, red eyes of the King of Heroes opposite him, as they narrowed in satisfaction. He could feel the infinite and finite in himself, he could feel it mirrored in everything, he could feel it emanating from Gilgamesh as well. He could feel himself mirroring Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh mirroring him. He looked deeply into Gilgamesh's eyes. He saw the Original Serpent, that mark of Evil in Creation, but he could also see something beautiful in them. Or rather, it was not that he could also see something beautiful, apart from the Evil. The Evil itself was what was beautiful. He didn't know why, he didn't care- that was simply how it was. He didn't need to question anymore what he felt with his own soul, the core of his being. He looked into those eyes, and he could see only one thing, in which he could see everything-

The Wine of Bliss.


End file.
